


how it should be

by owlinaminor



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 13:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3898801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They will have breakfast together.  They will talk about nothing and laugh about everything.  The sun will shine so bright, it’s easy enough to believe that it’s never going down again.</p>
<p><i>This,</i> Karen will think.  <i>This is how it should be.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	how it should be

**Author's Note:**

> this was written out of order and largely late at night - and it's unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own. but I have all these ot3 feelings that just need to get out there, so here I go anyway.
> 
> enjoy. :)

** i. **

Matt and Foggy don’t talk about that one night in college.

They don’t ever mention the night after finals, winter of their junior year – don’t ever mention how they stumbled back to their room, laughing and confident and on top of  the world – don’t ever mention how Matt pressed forward, fingers fumbling at Foggy’s shirt buttons – don’t ever mention how they fell together onto Matt’s bed – don’t ever mention the words they left unsaid.

It’s an unspoken rule, as clear and unflinching as their own personal constitution.  Women come and go, Foggy makes jokes, Matt pretends that he can’t tell when Foggy’s lying.  If nothing is said, they can believe nothing exists.  They are lawyers, and lawyers are men of stature, men of conviction – not men whose hearts beat faster with every touch on the shoulder, every long night alone together, every wide smile.  Their law exists for a reason, and they are not inclined to break it.

And then, the night he takes down Fisk, Matt returns home to find Foggy sitting on his couch, beer bottle clenched in white-knuckled hand.

Matt limps into the apartment then stops, two steps in front of his door.  “What’re you doing here?”

Foggy exhales, loudly enough that he’s sure Matt can hear it.  (He feels like he hasn’t breathed, really breathed, in hours.)  “I was worried about you,” he says honestly.

“You didn’t think I’d call you and tell you I was okay?”  Matt comes farther into the apartment.  He’s staggering, even though Foggy can’t see any clear injuries.  Maybe he’s just exhausted, or maybe he’s hurt somewhere underneath that suit – either way, it does little to dispel Foggy’s worry.  (And he definitely doesn’t think about that suit, how it makes every line on Matt’s body stand out so clearly, shows off the muscles he’s always been hiding beneath loosely tailored jackets – Foggy definitely doesn’t notice.)

“Honestly, I wasn’t sure,” Foggy admits.  He moves over on the couch to make room.  Matt sits down next to him, reaches up, and takes off the mask – and, fuck, he’s so tired but he’s _smiling_ , like triumphant smiling, and Foggy wants – he can’t let himself think what he wants.

“It wounds me that you’d think that, buddy,” Matt says.  “You’d be the second person I’d call.”

“Second?”  Foggy is definitely not jealous of whomever the first person is.

“Yeah, after Claire,” Matt explains.  “I need to ask her for medical advice.”  With that, he reaches into a pocket on the suit – the thing has _pockets,_ Foggy isn’t going to think about _where_ – and pulls out his phone.

Foggy sits on the couch, mere inches away from his friend, as Matt asks Claire all kinds of questions with words like “multiple fractures” and “possible concussion,” words that he doesn’t entirely understand and isn’t sure he wants to.  His fingers grow tighter and tighter around his beer bottle.

A couple of minutes into the conversation, Matt reaches out with one hand, carefully uncoils Foggy’s fingers, and grabs the bottle himself.  He takes a swig, then sets it down on the table.  Foggy transitions easily enough – he grabs the armrest of the couch.

“Okay, I’m putting you on speakerphone,” Matt says.  He sets the phone down next to the bottle and now he’s – fuck, he’s taking off the suit, Foggy was _not_ prepared for this.  Not prepared for this and even less prepared for everything underneath, cuts and bruises marring Matt’s chest like holes punctured into the center of a smooth canvas.  He should have been prepared, he’s seen this before – but somehow it still hits him, reminds him of everything his friend has been through.  _Fuck._

Foggy shakes his head, trying to clear it – and realizes that Matt is still talking to Claire, something about opening stitches and needing to fix them.  One of the gashes on his side is gaping, starting to bleed out, and Matt is examining it as though it’s just another legal document he needs to read.  Foggy wants to be sick.  He feels so useless, sitting here – why is he here, anyway?  What place does he have in this part of Matt’s life?  What place does he have in Matt’s life, period?

“I guess I’ll have to sew this one up,” Matt is saying.

“Wait,” Foggy interrupts, impulsive.  Matt turns to him as though just remembering that he’s still here.  “I can do it.”

“You can?”

Foggy shrugs.  “I took Home Ec in college, remember?  Gotta be worth something.”

Matt sighs and sits back on the couch.  “Sewing kit is in that cabinet, on the right side,” he says, pointing.

And, okay, Foggy never thought he’d be using anything he learned in Home Ec after the final (he only took the class because of this really cute girl he had a crush on, and _that_ never worked out), but here he is, sewing up his best friend, who also happens to be a vigilante superhero.  A vigilante superhero who goes out almost getting himself killed, night after night, and Foggy didn’t even know about it – how did he not even _know_ about it –

“Hey, Foggy,” Matt says.  Foggy can feel his breath on his cheek, which only serves to remind him of how close they are – Matt sitting on the couch and Foggy pressed up against him, hands shaking ever so slightly as he tends to Matt’s side.

“Yeah?” Foggy asks.  He’s doing his best to keep it light, but Matt can hear his heartbeat (he still finds that invasive as hell) so there isn’t much point, is there.

“Thanks.”  Matt lets his head drop until his forehead is resting on Foggy’s shoulder.  (It’s warm, and they’re so _close_ – thank God Foggy only has a couple of stitches left to go, because he can’t take much more of this.)  “For this,” Matt adds, into Foggy’s shoulder.  “For being here.  For everything.”

“Aw, it’s the least I can do, buddy,” Foggy replies.  “You’re out there fighting bad guys, saving the city.  I can sew worth shit.  We’re both contributing to the good of humanity.”

Matt chuckles, and Foggy can feel the vibration – intimate, like it’s becoming part of him.  This whole situation is so damn intimate.  Claire ended the phone call with a few parting words about no more fistfights with criminal masterminds, at least not for the next few days – and now it’s just Matt and Foggy, alone in Matt’s dark apartment.  The outside world fades out, all the horns and sirens of Hell’s Kitchen reverting into background noise until all Foggy can hear is his and Matt’s breathing.

“Okay, you’re all good,” Foggy says, voice definitely more shaky than normal.  (Can Matt tell?  That’s a stupid question, of course Matt can tell.  Matt can always tell.)

Foggy shifts to let Matt get up, but Matt isn’t moving.  He’s breathing, steady and even – he’s just staying, pressed against Foggy.

“Matt?” Foggy asks.  Matt only hums in response.

Foggy thinks – he thinks maybe he should get up, let Matt go to bed – but when he tries, Matt reaches up and pulls him back down.

“Stay,” he says, so quietly Foggy almost wonders if he’s imagining it.

“You need to go to bed,” Foggy argues.  “You’re tired, and this couch is _not_ comfortable enough for you to sleep on.”

Matt makes a vague noise of agreement, but he still isn’t going anywhere.  Foggy sighs – the guy can be so damn determined sometimes, it’s ridiculous.

But Foggy did not graduate summa cum laude from Columbia Law School for nothing.  He can find solutions to difficult problems.  He thinks for a moment, then grins, even though Matt can’t see.  Foggy extracts himself from his friend, then stands and flexes his arms a couple of times.

“Get ready, Matt,” he says.

And without further ado, Foggy reaches underneath Matt’s torso – _careful of his injuries_ – and lifts.  It takes a second to adjust, but before too long, Matt is balanced in Foggy’s arms, bridal-style.

“Shit,” he curses.  “You’re heavy.  Why didn’t you tell me you were heavy?”

“Never thought you’d be carrying me,” Matt replies.  Foggy shirts, realizes his left hand is dangerously close to Matt’s ass, and shifts again.  Matt starts laughing.  He has such a nice laugh, Foggy thinks.  Ecstatic, and so surprised, as though pulled out of him despite all the walls he’s put up against it.  He should laugh more often.

Foggy takes a few steps, trying to go quickly so that he doesn’t have to lift Matt any longer than is necessary.

“Wait, wait,” Matt says, still laughing.  “Wall.  _Wall._ ”

Foggy stops just short of hitting the wall next to Matt’s door.  He stumbles backward for one terrifying moment, but quickly catches himself and nearly runs the last few steps to Matt’s bed.

Matt drops onto the bed and Foggy follows quickly after.  They lie on their backs, Foggy’s right side pressed against Matt’s left, their breathing slowly evening until it matches.

“I love you, Foggy,” Matt murmurs, his face in Foggy’s shoulder.

Foggy smiles easily at him.  “Yeah, love you, too, buddy.”

“No, I mean – I mean.”  Matt pushes himself up so that he’s facing Foggy.  His eyes are somehow trained almost exactly on Foggy’s.  “I love you.  Like, _love you_.”

Foggy knows his heart is beating faster – knows Matt can hear it – knows that’s answer enough.  But he still needs to say something, make real what he’s kept hidden for years.

“Yeah,” he says.  “Yeah.  I love you, too.”

Matt smiles – and his whole face transforms, the lines soften, his eyes shine.  Foggy thinks, not for the first time, that it’s such a crime that Matt can’t ever see himself, can’t ever know just how ridiculously gorgeous he is –

But before Foggy can lament that fact too long, Matt is pulling him closer, one hand going to his cheek and the other to the back of his neck.  He kisses Foggy slowly, passionately, as though determined to make the most of every second.

Foggy kisses him back.  Really, could he do anything else?

* * *

**ii.**

It happens on a Friday night, with Foggy gone to visit his parents.

Matt and Karen are working late in the office, finishing up reviewing for a case they’re going to try on Monday morning.  At six thirty-three P.M., Karen stands up, sighs, and stretches her back.

“Hey, Matt,” she calls into the other room.  “You want to finish up for the day?  Go to Josie’s, grab a drink?”

“No, sorry, I can’t,” Matt answers.  “I have, um ... a prior engagement.”

Karen walks over to him, heels clicking on the hard floor.  “Yeah?” she asks.  “And what is that, exactly?”

“I was, um.” Matt swallows.  “Going to meet up with ... a guy.  About a thing.”  He’s been so good at hiding his secret for so long – all the excuses, the fictional accidents, the elaborate lies.  Maybe he’s losing his touch, or maybe he’s just tired of hiding from her.

“Does that thing possibly involve street fighting?” Karen asks.  Her voice is quiet, but _close_ – breath ghosting across Matt’s cheek, hair falling in a curtain upon his shoulder.  “Tight red and black suits?  Parkour, maybe?”

She retreats, and Matt hears her heartbeat accelerate – she’s scared, he realizes, of how he’ll react.  She shouldn’t be, though.  He isn’t angry, just relieved.  And maybe – warmth spreading across his chest – maybe a little proud of her for figuring it out.

“I’m sorry for hiding it from you,” he says honestly.  “I just ... I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

Karen laughs – softly, like early morning snow.  “Oh, Matt.  Don’t you know I can take care of myself?”  He wonders – not for the first time – if there’s something, some past, some secret she isn’t telling them, but quickly forgets as she draws closer again, kneeling beside his chair.  Her heartbeat is rising still – not from fear now, but from something else.

“I’m on your side, Matt,” she whispers, so close he can taste the shampoo she used that morning.  “I’ve always been on your side.”

She’s drawing even nearer, and he practically feels her eyelids flutter closed, and –

Matt abruptly pushes his chair back, leaving Karen to stumble and catch herself on the desk.

“Matt?” she asks.  Her heartbeat slows, and she sounds – confused.  Hurt.  “Did I misread something?”

“No!” Matt answers, too quickly.  “I mean, yes.  Maybe?”

“That’s literally the exact opposite of a clear answer,” Karen says.  Her voice is recovering – it has a lilt of amused, but the hurt is still here.

Matt runs a hand through his hair and tries to explain.  “I think you’re amazing, I really do, but I have ... Well, there’s someone else.”

“Foggy,” Karen supplies.

“Right, Foggy,” Matt agrees.  And then, “Wait, how did you know about that?”

Karen laughs, now – really laughs, like a girl seeing her favorite movie.  “You guys are not _nearly_ as stealthy as you think you are.  I don’t need supersenses to tell when you come in wearing the same aftershave, and it definitely doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you’re whispering about when you close the door to your office – well, either it’s you two making out, or it’s Daredevil stuff.”

She’s clever.  No, more than that – she’s brilliant.  Matt wonders, not for the first time, where this strong, tenacious, beautiful woman came from and why she chose him and Foggy.  She latched onto them like a guardian angel, not the kind you see in fairytales but the kind that pushes you too hard and tells you that you can do it when you’re feeling down.  And thank God – or Fate, or whoever sent her to Nelson & Murdock – for it, because they are so much better off with her.

Matt had thought that, when Karen found out the truth, she’d have a million questions.  He should’ve guessed that he’d end up more confused than she was.

“Okay, wait,” he says.  “So, you’re saying that you know ...”

“About you and Foggy, yes,” Karen finishes for him.  “Oh, I just nodded.”

“Right.  But you still want to ...” Matt gestures between the two of them.

“I’m not asking you to cheat on him, before you try to imply that,” she clarifies.  “I know you never would.  What I’m asking is for you to ... Let me in, I guess.  The degree of that is up to you.  I don’t know where you and Foggy fall on the sexuality spectrum, so I’m not explicitly asking for anything ... well, explicit.  For me, the most important thing is that you don’t leave me out.  Not of Daredevil stuff, not of you and Foggy stuff, not of anything.  You guys are my family, and I don’t want to feel excluded by my family.”  There’s an edge in her voice, almost as though she might be on the verge of tears – and Matt can’t allow that, he just can’t.

He reaches out, fumbles, and grabs her hand.  “I promise we won’t exclude you anymore,” he says.  “I’ll talk to Foggy.”

“Thank you,” Karen says, voice still quivering ever so slightly.

“You’re our family, too,” Matt says quietly.  “Please know that.”  He lifts her palm and presses a gentle kiss to it, then lets it fall, but still keeps hold.

They stay like that, Matt sitting and Karen standing next to him, for some time – a few seconds, ten minutes, it’s impossible to tell.

And then, Matt fills Foggy in – about Karen knowing, and about Karen potentially being interested in _something explicit_ – that Sunday, when he gets back from his parents’.  He’s expecting – he isn’t sure what he’s expecting, really, only that it isn’t for Foggy to grin widely.  (Matt can figure out Foggy’s facial expressions, now, if he concentrates hard enough.  He’s privately very proud of that.)

“This is the _best possible outcome,_ buddy,” Foggy exclaims.  “First you, and now Karen?  I must’ve been a saint in a past life or something.”

“So, do you want to ...?”  Matt isn’t sure what to ask, exactly.

But Foggy knows the answer, anyway.  Foggy always knows.  “Yeah,” he says.  “Yeah, I do.”

Matt draws Foggy in, presses a kiss to his cheek.  “Then, let’s do it.”

And so, Matt and Foggy invite Karen out to dinner.  All three of them, but no work allowed.  They go to a fancy French place where all the entrees have names that are impossible to pronounce and all the plates are five times as big as the food that goes on them, and end up getting kicked out for laughing too loudly.  ( _Laughing too loudly,_ Foggy laments as they leave.  _Oh, the horror.  The humanity._ )  Eventually, they go for pizza instead – bring it back to Matt’s apartment, since he’s the closest, and eat all pushed together on Matt’s couch to the sound of old science fiction episodes.

And afterwards, Matt grabs Karen by one hand and Foggy by the other and leads them into his bedroom.  It takes them time to figure it out – which limbs go where, and when, and _why_ – but they get it through trial and error and honesty.  (Foggy claims that he’ll master this as he masters all things; Matt reminds him how well he failed to master art history in college; Karen just does her best to kiss both of them at once.)

Neither Foggy nor Karen ever asked to stay the night, but Matt would die before he kicked either of them out.  They stay there, all tangled together – no need for blankets with so much warmth radiating from within.

Matt listens to their heartbeats – slow and steady and grounded.  He blocks everything out but their heartbeats and falls asleep with them marching in the back of his mind, a simple chorus of, _you-are so-loved, you-are so-loved, you-are so-loved._

It will be the best night’s sleep he’s had in years.

* * *

**iii.**

Karen spent such a long time without a home.

Where she comes from, a house is just a place where you stay the night.  It’s got four walls, some furniture, some other people – people who only tolerate you as long as you’re useful.  She grew up wary, always watching for the next offense.  She grew up scared, so scared that one night she wondered if her heart could run right out of her chest.

When she came to New York, she wasn’t looking for a home – she just wanted to get out.  This rocketship with its passenger list of one wasn’t headed for a star, it could barely even see the sun.  All it knew was that anything – any sky, no matter how dark – would be better than the cold, hard ground.

And yet, this rocketship _landed_ – landed on a planet with two bright suns.  Suns, that’s what Matt and Foggy are – bright and shining, like the mystical swords of the knights of old, and more compassionate than she’d ever thought people could be.  Suns, saving the world one person at a time.  Is it at all surprising that Karen was caught in their gravitational pull?

Is it all surprising that she fell in love with Matt’s surprised laughter and the curve of Foggy’s smile as he makes a terrible joke – with Foggy’s modest kindness and Matt’s easy grace – with intelligence and determination and signs scribbled on bar napkins and three A.M. pizza breaks and a thousand other things?  Is it at all surprising that Nelson & Murdock quickly becomes more of a home than her father’s house ever was?  That Foggy and Matt become her family?  It isn’t surprising.  It shouldn’t be.

She doesn’t tell them all of that in words – she’s never been one for mushy sentimentality.  But she always gets the job done, and this job is no different from any other in that she can do it simply, perfectly.  She tells her boys she loves them every time she brings them coffee in the mornings, every time she harmonizes with Foggy through the office wall, every time she helps Matt cover up his new bruises with carefully applied foundation.  She buys an air conditioner for the office late in June, and she attempts to duplicate her grandmother’s favorite recipes for them, and she commissions an artist she knows to draw a caricature of the two of them as avocados to give to them for the firm’s one year anniversary – and all of that is saying, clearer than anything, _You guys are everything to me._

The office falls into a rhythm, between difficult cases and lazy dry spells.  It learns, it adapts, it evolves from Nelson & Murdock into Nelson & Murdock & Page.  ( _It sounds better_ , Matt says as Foggy adds her name to the paper sign.)

And it’s true that sometimes, there are fights that last for days, animosity driving them apart from a source nobody can quite remember by the time the argument ends.  There are times when the cases seem impossible and times when Matt staggers into his apartment at four A.M. and refuses to go to the hospital even though any other man wouldn’t be able to stand.  But those hard times are balanced – more than balanced, they’re outnumbered – by the good, the days they win cases and the days they actually feel like they’re making a difference.

And more and more, when Matt goes out looking for trouble, Karen and Foggy break into his apartment and wait for him to come home.  They play board games or watch ridiculous movies, or Karen decorates Matt’s apartment and Foggy attempts to cook, or they just doze in Matt’s bed, leaving plenty of space for one more.

“Hey,” he’ll say.  He’ll sound exhausted but triumphant, the hero returning from a night out beating humanity into something better.  (He hates it when they call him a hero, but that’s what he is.  He’s _their_ hero, half broken and half lost and all persevering.)

Karen will wake up first, and then she’ll prod Foggy until he sees who it is.  “Hey,” Foggy will tell Matt, grinning.  “Did you get the bad guys?”

Matt will shrug.  “Enough of them for one night.”

And he’ll fall into bed – and Karen and Foggy will yell at him, make him take off the suit, patch up his newest cuts and bruises, and get rid of those _shoes, who wears shoes in bed for fuck’s sake_ – and he’ll pull them close, and they’ll fall asleep just like that.  Safe and warm and happy.

And then sometimes, there are mornings when Karen wakes up with Foggy’s head on her chest and Matt’s face pressed into her side, and she’s always loved getting up early but _this_ – this warmth, this calm, this feeling of rightness – is enough for her to shift, sigh happily, and go back to sleep.  And a couple of hours later, she’ll wake up to the smell of Foggy making pancakes.  She’ll rub her eyes until she can make out Matt standing next to him at the counter fixing coffee, their hips brushing every so often – and she’ll leap out of bed, sneak up behind them, and draw them into a hug, kissing them both.

They will have breakfast together.  They will talk about nothing and laugh about everything.  The sun will shine so bright, it’s easy enough to believe that it’s never going down again.

_This,_ Karen will think.  _This is how it should be._

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come talk to me about these dumb avocado children on [tumblr](http://gratuitytuccci.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
